The Web
by WingedWolf121
Summary: Post-Reinchenbach. In which John does not deal with the loss of Sherlock well, and Sherlock sets about destroying Moriarty's web. Eventual John/Sherlock reunion, slash.


**Listen to me, Moffat you fucker: If Sherlock fans have to wait for season 3, we will burn you. We will burn the HEART out of you. That episode ripped out my fucking heart and danced on it. Dropping everything and writing a reunion was obligatory.**

**Disclaimer: After that sort of episode, you think I own Sherlock? Ha.**

The problem is that Moriarty was a spider. One spider, with an enormous web, full of other tiny spiders and sticky strands and a hundred entanglements ready to snare an unsuspecting young doctor, who has no idea that Sebastian Moran would put a bullet in his head if Sherlock wasn't "dead".

Before Sherlock can rectify the situation, and tell John that he's still alive, he needs to get rid of the web. Every single strand has to be snipped, because Sherlock knows that any one of them could easily stick to John and bring him back into the sights of an assassin.

It would be easy. Just like it would be easy for Sherlock to walk - no, _run_ across the graveyard and grab John, tell John that he isn't dead, to add that he loves John and will John please, please, stop looking so sad.

Sherlock couldn't bear to put the "love" part in his note. He doesn't know if he'll ever see John again. He can't come back until the web is finished, and Sherlock knows full well that this is a nearly impossible task. If he admitted his affection to John, if John's reaction was one that indicated any hint of reciprocation, Sherlock would not have had the strength to jump.

Besides, John has better things to do than associate with a fraudulent detective. Sherlock turns away and walks across the cemetery in the other direction, his stride that of a hunter. He has things to do and organizations to destroy.

**Days**

John stays in the flat. Where else would he go? Mycroft pays most of the rent, probably out of guilt. If he'd kept his mouth shut, acted for the interests of his brother rather than those of the British Government, maybe Sherlock wouldn't have committed suicide.

Mycroft isn't doing so well. He's trying to cope with the fact that he said _nothing_ when his brother was being called a fraud and having his whole world torn down around him. Mycroft knew, after all, that Moriarty was real. Everyone in the high circles of the government knew.

No one said anything. They found him with a bullet through his temple and Mycroft wondered what in the world Moriarty said to his little brother, what managed to convince Sherlock the world would be better off without The Consulting Detective in it.

Mycroft didn't think that. He was proud of his little brother. Not proud enough to say so, but he thought Sherlock _knew_ he was proud, _knew_ that if he ever truly needed help he could rely on his family, that the little boy who used to ask him such impossible questions was smart enough to read between the lines.

Apparently not. The least Mycroft can do is pay John's rent.

Two weeks after the papers announce Sherlock's death, Mycroft gets a text.

_Is it true?_

_Who is this?_ Not words Mycroft is used to using, but it's an unregistered number and it comes from somewhere in Uganda.

_Is it true?_ Mycroft thinks about who would care. He can't think of very many people. Even less who would be clever enough to get his number and text him.

_How did you get out of that terrorist cell?_ Mycroft isn't the British Government for nothing.

_Sherlock._ Nothing else needs to be said, except that Mycroft feels another spark of admiration for his little brother. So Sherlock infiltrated a terrorist cell in another country and freed Irene Adler, all without attracting the notice of his older brother.

_It's true._ The phone doesn't beep again, and Mycroft wonders what Miss Adler thinks of this development. She could have stepped up too, when Sherlock was being destroyed. She was clever enough to prove that Moriarty existed, but wherever she is, she probably didn't know it was happening. Not until it was too late.

Mycroft downs a glass of liquor and wishes that he was a wiser man.

**Months**

John spends the first two months in a daze, with Mrs. Hudson. She still keeps bringing up two cups of tea, and food that John suddenly realizes he only ate because Sherlock liked it, and that he can barely stomach now.

The walls are thin enough for him to hear Mrs. Hudson cry at night. She blames herself for not seeing the signs. John wants to tell her to quit thinking she was that instrumental, he was the one who was moronic enough to think that Sherlock didn't care about his landlady being shot. Sherlock would kill for Mrs. Hudson, his nonreaction ought to have set off warning bells but it _didn't._

John replays it over and over. He remembers seeing Sherlock on the edge of that roof and not connecting it with suicide because Sherlock was _Sherlock_, he'd never let the world win that way, and then realizing that Sherlock was crying and that his friend was about to die.

Then seeing Sherlock fall. He asks, at the grave, for a miracle. Surely, surely, Sherlock could spring out of the grave and laugh in his face, say that this was all a trick and that he's alive, of course he's alive.

John knows it won't happen. He saw the blood pooling on the street. He saw the coat flutter around Sherlock's body as he fell, somehow mocking them both because it almost looked like a parachute, like it would catch him and Sherlock would survive. But physics tells him that can't work, and so it doesn't.

Sherlock's grave isn't enough. Mycroft bought it, a black slab with an engraving, but there's nothing there that says how incredible Sherlock was, how utterly phenomenal and brilliant and fantastic and all those adjectives John has already used to describe Sherlock on his blog.

The blog. John can't bring himself to touch a laptop now, not when it was his stupid blog that put his fragile friend into the public eye. It's just one more reason the self loathing is building up.

**Months**

In the winter, Sherlock tramps across Russia and gets frostbite. He doesn't lose any appendages, but it's a very near thing. He kills two men, and destroys a gang, and loses twenty pounds he couldn't afford to lose.

**Months**

In the winter, Mycroft shows up and says that they need to talk about Sherlock's will. John stares at him and does not comprehend. He can't believe that Sherlock bothered with a will, but he did, and Mycroft says wearily that they have to get it over with.

Sherlock didn't have very many friends. The skull goes to Mrs. Hudson, with his set of fine china that usually gets used either as ashtrays or as convenient stands for dangerous chemicals.

Lestrade, surprisingly, inherits quite a bit. There's an annotated map of London, where Sherlock marked out drug dens, dealers, brothels, places down at the docks where all manner of bootleg was shipped in, and criminal hideouts. He also gives him their garbage bin.

For Mycroft, it says, quite specifically "Anything in the fridge that's rotting".

John gets everything else. The bathrobes, the massive stacks of books, the clothing, the chemical set, all the horrible reminders of Sherlock.

"I can get rid of that." Mycroft tells him. They're all standing around, and John thinks it's rather sad that Molly got nothing. Sherlock really didn't notice her at all. She might have liked a robe, or a scarf.

"No." John says quietly. "Leave it. I'll deal with it."

They all file out then. First to go is Mrs. Hudson, escaping downstairs to cry over her new plates, which Mycroft assures her are antique and of the highest quality, worth more than a year's rent payments.

Mycroft leaves and goes to work. His standing at work has rather gone down, since his little brother committed suicide and was debunked as a liar. The sadly misinformed lower downs are muttering, though just what isn't clear. It means he has to work harder. He's fine with that. Work stops him from thinking.

Lestrade lingers, helplessly staring at the map, one that will doubtless help make his career.

"Why didn't you speak up?" John asks. It's difficult to get the words out. "Did you really think he would kidnap a couple of kids just to get some attention? Or the whole game thing - did you believe he managed to fake that?"

"I…" Lestrade can't look him in the face. "It happened very fast."

"Yeah." John says. "Fast enough for you do stand by and do nothing."

"I didn't…" Lestrade is helpless. "John, look at the evidence!"

"But it's going to break down. You know it's going to break down." John's voice cracks for the first time since he was sixteen. "Moriarty was real, and soon you're going to prove it."

"It made sense." Lestrade says, except it didn't. It only made sense when Sally and Anderson were eager, like the rest of the force, to prove that Sherlock was no better than the rest of them, not when you looked at the scope of the cases and how many times Sherlock had an alibi, and all the good Sherlock did for them. The number of killings has gone down since Sherlock left. (_Since Moriarty died_, whispers a traitorous part of his mind). But percentage wise, they aren't solving nearly as many cases. His team just _isn't that good _without Sherlock.

"No, it didn't." John says harshly. "And maybe, if he'd had someone else _trust him_, he'd be here."

"I know." Lestrade closes his eyes. "I'm looking into it, I am. I'm the only one looking into it."

"You'd better." John nearly snarls.

"I never saw a defensive post on the blog." Lestrade snaps back. John sags. The DI has to step forward to help keep John on his feet. "I'm sorry, that was out of line."

"No." John whispers. "It was my fault too."

"The only one who jumped off that building was Sherlock." Lestrade says simply and wearily, because he's had conversations like this with himself a thousand times, when he's drunk and trying to get the headlines out of his head. John can't answer, and Lestrade leaves to go home, back to his bottles of liquor and his files of unresolved cases.

**Days**

Sally hung the paper up above her desk. The one where it says that Sherlock was a fraud. She didn't put up the one where it says he committed suicide, and when she first saw it she swayed on her feet and felt the world realign itself. Not necessarily for the better.

Because no matter how she wanted to believe it, she didn't. Not entirely. Sherlock Holmes was a genius, and a psychopath, and she suspected him for every new crime, but making up a villain, manipulating a court case…Sally had expected it to break down and for Sherlock to come back as superior as he always was, and she had been savoring the feeling of "right" while it lasted.

Then Sherlock had to go and die. And try as she might, Sally just couldn't celebrate it. No matter how hard she kept trying, the joy wouldn't come.

**Days**

A month after the children have been reclaimed, the boy starts talking. He tells them how their kidnapper flashed pictures of Sherlock on a screen in front of them, how they played his voice deafeningly loudly and how they flickered from picture to picture for hours, then left them in the factory with the chocolate.

At that moment, Sally feels her heart sink to her feet and wonders if maybe she and Anderson made a terrible, terrible, mistake.

**Days**

John writes in his blog. He says, simply, that no one will ever convince him that Sherlock was anything less than a genius and a brilliant man, and that maybe if people would take their heads out of their arses and think, Sherlock would still be alive because it's so bloody obvious that Sherlock couldn't have done this!

He deletes that and changes it, to a heartfelt testimony that Sherlock was not a fraud, but "him whom I shall ever regard as the best and the wisest man whom I have ever known".

John thinks it's not nearly a good enough description, but he doesn't know what's missing.

**Months**

Sherlock corners a man in Hong-Kong, and gets into a knife fight. He's stabbed, and gets a god awful scar over his abdomen. But he survives, and while he's there, he snips off a few more strands of the web.

**Months**

John still doesn't have a job. For one, people think he's crazy for supporting Sherlock when he all but admitted his guilt by committing suicide. For another, he's not good company. There's a numbness about him and a blankness in his stare that puts off the interviewers who are willing to take a chance.

Harry calls on him. She looks at the filthy apartment and her brother who barely shaves and doesn't deliver the tough love she came to administer. Instead she cooks him a meal - it's not exactly a good meal, but it's edible - and pours a liberal amount of sherry into it.

For the first time in months, John sleeps without dreaming. It's good.

Meanwhile, Harry talks to Mrs. Hudson, who talks to Mycroft, who arranges for John to meet with his therapist again. The woman is useless, but it's better than trying to make John form bonds with a new counselor. And John desperately needs some sort of help.

**Days**

The therapist is quite a bit smarter than she gets credit for. She observes that John is holding something back, even after he tells her the full story. She also reserves judgment on whether this Sherlock fellow was a fraud.

"What aren't you saying?" She probes as gently as she can. "What are you holding back?"

Tears, for a start. John isn't good at crying. Even Sherlock cried at the end, and she's certain that he would want John to do some sort of mourning other than internalizing everything and looking out with those blank eyes.

"Sherl" John chokes. This is as close to crying as he has ever gotten. "Sherlock."

"Go on." She knows what he never said. As said, she's smarter than she's given credit for, even though a blind child could figure out this one. "Pretend he can hear you."

"I lo - " John chokes again. "I love." She waits. This desperately, desperately, needs to be said. She's more than certain that it's been festering for all the months since she last saw him. "I love him. I love Sherlock."

He's still doing his best not to cry, but it's not really working. There's moisture pouring down those cheeks soon, and the soldier folds in on himself, crying helplessly.

_Why didn't I tell him, why didn't I say it before, why didn't I try to stop him, at least he would've come down to see how it was affecting me if I said it, how did I waste that last phone call not saying it_

Admitting to a therapist that he was in love with Sherlock doesn't help. It just means that John cries a lot more often, and that when he's curled up on his couch, he does it with Sherlock's robe pressed to his nose. The robes still smell like Sherlock, a blend of chemicals and fine soap and the barest traces of tea.

John keeps them smelling that way as long as he can. The rest of the flat is slowly moving on, but the wonderful silk robes are kept in John's room, as treasured possessions. John is not moving on.

The chemistry set ends up being donated to a school. John contacted Molly, to ask if the lab needed it, but the lab told him that she transferred to another mortuary and that they had everything they needed anyway.

The school is thrilled to get it (Apparently, this thing is extremely sophisticated and worth a bundle). John makes sure that it's a very low income school, so that there's a possibility that the homeless network will be benefiting. Sherlock was the only one who could identify one of _his_ homeless people versus anyone else, so John can't think of another way to thank them.

Mrs. Hudson is the one who keeps food in the fridge. John lies around with the robes and takes baby steps toward recovery, whenever he stops crying. It's not natural for him to cry this much. It's not what he's used to.

He keeps the books. Everything that he can keep, he does keep. The chemistry set had to go because it took up the entire kitchen table and that was completely Sherlock, not something he could even pretend to make use of.

**1 Year**

John realizes, once a year has passed, that the robes don't smell like Sherlock anymore. They've been reduced to worn out silk bathrobes, and somehow John still can't bear to part with them. He goes into Sherlock's drawers soon after he loses those security blankets.

He finds a box of cigarettes, a photograph of a beautiful woman who bears a striking resemblance to Sherlock and Mycroft (it's eerie, how she manages to look like both of them when they look nothing alike) and freshly laundered clothing. That makes him cry again, since it's so bloody obvious that Sherlock hadn't been planning on dying.

**1 Year**

Moriarty existed. It isn't making papers, not yet, but Lestrade calls Sally and Anderson into his office and tells them, point blank.

"He was real. We've investigated and now that he's dead, people are talking." Lestrade's grip on the telephone he's holding is white. "I also reviewed all of those files, the ones where we had Sherlock come in to help."

Sally and Anderson eye each other nervously. They haven't talked much over the past year, but it's hung around them that they were the ones who started it. They were the ones who leapt at every opportunity to call him a freak.

"And every single one of them is clean." Lestrade says. His voice is calm and somehow that's worse than any type of screaming. "Sherlock was just a genius. That was it."

"Yeah, but…" Anderson tries to form any type of rebuttal, or justification. There's nothing he can say.

"I thought you two ought to know." Lestrade goes back to his papers. "Do either of you have anything on the murder case?"

"No." Sally whispers.

"Then get out." They both leave and shut the door behind them. Then Sally and Anderson look at each other and for once, can't think of a single comment.

**Days**

Sally takes the newspaper off her wall.

**Days**

Anderson requests a transfer, and has it granted.

**Days**

Lestrade stays late at work. He looks at the gun in his desk drawer and decides against it, because he's still useful, even if this particular man they're failing to catch is a child molester and if they only had Sherlock, this would probably have been solved in an hour.

But Sherlock would have said it was boring. Lestrade, for the first time since Sherlock's suicide, remembers the man himself, the way he shot a gun into the air whenever he wanted to summon the police, the way he scoffed at murder and laughed over dead bodies, that smile that Lestrade rarely saw but that really was a wonderful smile. He remembers the flash of hurt on Sherlock's face when a little girl screamed. He remembers that Sherlock was a former drug addict whose first conversation with Lestrade was from a jail cell.

Lestrade cries that night, over the man who was almost good by the end, and not over the brilliant mind the world will miss.

**Months**

Mrs. Hudson sees the paper first. It's been over a year since Sherlock died, but for some reason he's on the front page again. She reads the story and runs upstairs to talk to John.

"John!" He's on the couch with a robe, trying to read a book. "The papers!"

"Hmm?" John's very lethargic. He has been for the past year. Despite that, he's still managed to lose weight, and it looks horribly unhealthy.

"Sherlock!" John flinches. Mrs. Hudson shoves the paper at him and John devours the article. It clears Sherlock's name. A reporter, called Lara Enedei (John has no idea who that is, but where was she when Sherlock needed the good press?) did some research.

It tells what John already knew. That is was completely impossible for Sherlock to invent things like that. It also runs an expose on Jim Moriarty, and it tears through him, tells all about the consulting criminal and how the actor never existed.

The public eats it up. John returns to his blog and sees how many people are commenting that they never believed it anyway, that they knew he couldn't have done it, people who are shocked that that awful reporter fell for the "actor" story.

John laughs for the first time since Sherlock died. He calls Lestrade, and Lestrade admits that he was the one who looked into the cases with intention to appease his own conscious, and spilled everything to the journalist. He's even quoted, though anonymously.

The blog explodes and is more popular than ever before. Sherlock Holmes hats go back into fashion. John writes in the blog, about how he knew it all along and he's glad to see their support. He doesn't include the bitter wish that they'd shown a bit of this loyalty earlier, since then the man he loved would still be alive.

But also…it raises questions for John. Sherlock must have known that eventually the public would swing round to his side and that when they did, they'd swing stronger than ever. Why on earth would he jump off a roof knowing that?

He'll never know. John cries again that night, watching the numbers for his blog race up.

But in the morning, he gets up and searches for old cases, ones that people didn't know about, and puts one on the blog. It hurts, and not in the good way, not at all. John's a doctor, he knows what kind of pain tells someone that they're healing.

This isn't that pain. There seems to be no cure at all.

**Months**

Sherlock ends up in America. He gets captured by a gang and tortured, but he spills no information. Instead he manipulates the CIA into capturing the criminal leaders and escapes out a window, hurt and bleeding. He runs for ten miles and hops the border into Canada. Once there, he rests to lick his wounds and figure out his next move.

**Months**

Mycroft reads the paper. He sends a text.

_Thank you_

There's no reply, and Mycroft knows that it should have been him who redeemed Sherlock. But Sherlock didn't care all that much for the public, and so Mycroft turns his attentions to what Sherlock did care about.

**Days**

John needs a job. He also needs to tidy up this flat. He can do neither. His old place offers him a job again - John imagines that Mycroft pulled a string - and John readily accepts. He needs to get back into the world.

The job is an abject failure. He keeps thinking of what Sherlock would say, and the medical equipment brings flashbacks to Sherlock and his scientist ways, and John has to leave partway through the day. He doesn't go back.

**Months**

Sherlock finally gets the paper. He reads about his name being cleared and hopes that it makes John's life easier. He wonders if John has a new girlfriend yet. He probably does. No woman in her right mind would refuse a man as good as John, and without Sherlock there to mess things up, John could actually find one worthy of him.

That gives Sherlock an awful feeling in his chest. So Sherlock gets up and makes plans to head to South America. Moriarty had many strands in the drug trade, and that's as good a place as any to start eliminating them.

**Months**

John finally gets angry at Sherlock, when he fails to hold down his fourth job.

"Just what did you think I was going to do, huh?" John yells at the smiley face in the wall. He would go downstairs and get the skull, but that would involve real thought, and this is more emotion. "Just go back to living my life? Well I can't! I know that owe you everything but God Sherlock, you had some obligations to me too!

"You left me with nothing! You were my best friend, quite apart from the fact that I bloody _loved_ you, and did you think that I would be able to shrug off you bloody jumping off a building in front of me? You're a bloody selfish git!" John stops, panting. "I bloody miss you."

He repeats this yelling at Sherlock's grave. Thank god Sherlock's grave is so secluded. There are fresh flowers on the grave, probably thanks to Mrs. Hudson, and John sits down in front of it and pretends he's giving Sherlock the talk he always wanted to.

"To start with, you are an absolute fright to live with. You leave your dishes all around, and do you even know how to use a dishwasher? Because you never did. You also ruined our couch, I can feel the cushions sag whenever I sit on it. And there are unmentionable stains on the table." John smiles slightly. "If you hadn't done so much good, you'd be in Hell just for what you did to the freezer. It still smells like seawater.

"So, yeah." John isn't used to talking to Sherlock without an answer. Somehow the image of Sherlock with a halo, contradicting a bunch of angels comes to him. John laughs slightly. "I guess I should be happy my life isn't so chaotic, but I'm really not. I miss you too much."

This is probably the first step to healing. But a flash of pain so fierce that he has to close his eyes lances through John, and yet more tears trickle out. Oh god, he misses Sherlock.

**Months**

Sherlock is not over his head with drug lords, but only because he's a pretty good swimmer. He has to undo empires and societies and horrible, horrible men, because Moriarty's webs are cemented at the very top of the social pyramid here. Also, he gets a bad sunburn and misses John.

The drug emperor here was a particular friend of Moriarty's, and somehow recognizes Sherlock. Or maybe he recognizes the sort of person Sherlock is, since Sherlock ends up in a room alone with nothing to divert him but drugs, and finds that they're just as good now as they were when he was a teenager.

**Months**

John gets a job with the police. It's still painful, working with all these people who knew Sherlock, but he has to do something, and this work suits him. Lestrade and his people consult John when they need a doctor, and they very often need a doctor. It's possible that they make things up on occasion, or that they're really being very accommodating to John, but he doesn't mind.

It's work. Another story makes the papers, a sort of follow up to clearing Sherlock's name - it's about the reporter, the moron who got duped by Moriarty. She'll probably never work again. John, for all his niceness, is glad.

People treat him even better at work, after that. Sally comes up to him one day with coffee.

"Do you want to hit me?" John blinks at her. She turns her cheek. "If you'd like to, I won't stop you. You can beat me up."

"No, it's fine. Moriarty would have done it somehow. You weren't the only one Sherlock pissed off." John swallows. He won't cry in front of Sally, not even at this low, low, moment. "I can't say I forgive you…"

"Oh no, god no." Sally says quickly. "I just wanted to say that if there's anything I can do, anything at all, just ask." John glances over her figure and just doesn't feel it. He loved Sherlock. He doesn't want anyone else. Let alone Sally with all of those nasty words. She may be sorry now, but those words will never be taken back.

**Months**

Sherlock lies on the floor in a drug induced haze, and dreams of John and Moriarty. He images the bullet catching John, of blood pouring from John's back and Moriarty's laugh, the laughter that only Moriarty could pull off. People move around him, but Sherlock can't think enough to understand what they're doing.

After a month of this, he begins to fight it off. Slowly Sherlock regains his mind, as in his mind he chants _Remember John. Remember John. Remember John. _Sherlock would be quite happy to lie in this haze forever, since he isn't bored and there's no real pain here, but he wants to see John. John, real John, isn't here and he knows it.

When Sherlock fully shakes off the drug he realizes that some terrible things have happened to him while he was in the haze. He's been violated and beaten and there are bugs in his _hair._ Sherlock escapes, though just barely. He retreats to a village, broods and plots, then comes back and shatters the empire.

Sherlock wonders if, when he goes back to London, John will even want to see him. After all, he thinks as he puts a gun to the temple of the man who first gave him the drugs, this makes Sherlock quite the international criminal.

Still, no one who could describe him survives, and Sherlock boards a plan to Europe.

**Days**

Mycroft frowns at the reports he gets. A rather important drug lord has fallen in South America, and they happen to have been a chief supplier to the remnants of Moriarty's organization. It's not bad news, certainly not, but it's disturbing news just because he isn't sure how it happened.

The remaining Holmes always knows how things happen. Half the time he's the one arranging them, so why doesn't he know now? Mycroft sips his tea and wonders and decides to capitalize on it, and let someone else worry about the how. He can look into it later. For now, he's got to check on John Watson.

**Days**

John might be healing, but the nightmares don't stop. He sees Sherlock falling every single night, the wind whipping out his coat and the blue edge of his scarf showing against the sky. The war didn't traumatize him like this has, and in the war he saw entire squadrons of men die screaming. But he didn't love any of those men.

Mrs. Hudson calls on him quite often, and they don't mention Sherlock. They just talk about telly and how Mrs. Hudson's other rooms are doing, and if she's ever going to marry that sweet gentleman who always inquires after it.

It's not right, not having Sherlock there. But it's tolerable, and that's better than how John usually feels.

"What about you John?" Mrs. Hudson asks. "Anyone on the horizon?"

John shakes his head. It's been a bit over two years since Sherlock died, but one doesn't simply get over a man like Sherlock. He honestly can't think of being with anyone else. But at the same time John is unbearably lonely sometimes, and he wishes he had someone with him.

"No, I don't think so." John smiles sadly. "I doubt it'll ever happen."

"Well, there's no need to be…" Mrs. Hudson suddenly understands, and trails off. She pats his shoulder. "I understand, dear. But don't give up hope."

John feels a flash of anger. Mrs. Hudson may have loved Sherlock like a son, but she didn't love him like John did, and she got to tell Sherlock that she loved him, rather than waste a phonecall. She never heard Sherlock crying.

John represses that comment, though, and smiles politely. He has to keep living, and screaming at poor Mrs. Hudson is not at all the way to go about that.

**Years**

Sherlock has always been lonely, but this is worse than it normally is. He treks through India trying to find Sebastian Moran and can't, though he does stop several crimes and gets a new scar when a tiger almost kills him (bugger the people who used to send him flyers about animal rights, he kills the beast and wishes he could give John the pelt). It's not much fun without John.

He misses London. Sherlock can visualize every corner of the city, unless they've changed things since his suicide. He yearns for home and for drugs and for John and has even more trouble sleeping.

But on the plus side, he's almost done. Sebastian Moran is the only remaining link, after two and a half years, and if Sherlock can only track down Moriarty's right hand man, he'll be able to go home.

The nagging doubt about whether he should bother is still there. Sherlock knows that he was a horrible nuisance to John, that John was almost the only one who liked him, that he put John in danger a thousand times. Would it be too selfish to return?

**3 Years**

John sees one morning that it's been three years. He has counted the days since Sherlock died, and he marks the day by getting hopelessly drunk.

**Months**

Sherlock cannot find Sebastian Moran. This is a man who is almost on the level of Sherlock and Moriarty but doesn't get bored like they did. Sherlock tracks him across Switzerland and nearly falls off a mountain for his troubles. He also nearly gets his head smashed in by a rock, and finally concludes that he needs help.

He needs Moran to make a mistake. Until then Sherlock wanders around Germany and Poland and Iran and Iraq, doing his best to find things that distract him from John and London. He helps the British Government several times, anonymously. He finds that the Middle East is far too hot and goes back north, and spends much time in Norway.

Eventually, Moran does slip up. He's been in London for quite awhile - Sherlock knew, but was afraid to return for fear that he'd been unable to stay away from John - and he finally ran out of money.

Sherlock has been getting along for the past 3 years by stealing, mainly, and since he's usually stealing from criminals, he finds it quite justified. But Moran is stealing from the cards table, and Sherlock predicts that soon his young friend Ronald Adair will die for it.

Still, he can't go back to London alone and just attack Moran. He needs…help. Sherlock takes a deep breath and gets onto a ship. He makes the crossing to England, gets into London wearing a disguise, and heads for his big brother.

**Days**

Mycroft has never in his life had a heart attack. He walks into his offices like he normally does, opens the door to his special inner office with the bulletproof walls, and comes as close to a heart attack as he ever has.

"It was Sebastian Moran. And I can't prove it." Sherlock says from across the desk. Sherlock is sitting in Mycroft's chair (it's almost like they're kids and Sherlock is delighting in sitting in the bigger seat) and flipping through extremely confidential papers.

"Ah." Mycroft shuts the office door. "May I ask how?"

"Your security is terrible, I only had to pickpocket two ID cards to get in." Sherlock looks godawful, and that's coming from a man who has seen Sherlock at his former worst. His hair has gotten longer and been badly cut, he's wearing a coat that he must have pinched from someone in Norway, and he's lost so much weight that he looks near skeletal.

"Dear brother. It's so wonderful to see you." Mycroft steps forward and hugs Sherlock. He feels a very skinny and very fragile body cling to him. It's exactly the same feeling as when they were very, very, young children. Then Sherlock scrambles away, pushing him back and glaring venomously.

"_Please_ don't make it into a family reunion, we both abhor them." It's Sherlock. It really is Sherlock, there's no mistaking the reaction to the hug or the tone of voice. An actor couldn't fake that.

"I agree. Out of my chair." Sherlock makes a hmming noise that implies he has no intention of vacating the seat. Mycroft looks over him intently, analyzing and absorbing information. Sherlock has been all over the world, he's been poor and reckless and brilliant and stupid at the same time, dipped back into his old drug habits though not by choice, is having a hell of a time stopping himself from going back to them, and this explains quite a bit of the world happenings over the last three years.

"Sebastian Moran is going to kill Ronald Adair, if he hasn't already, over gambling debts. Go arrest him." Mycroft pauses, considers data, and comes to the same conclusion. This will be a great crime indeed, as Ronald Adair is two steps from the royal family and beloved by the public.

"Hmm. So, you faked you own suicide and…oh." Mycroft suddenly gets it. "Moriarty threatened John, didn't he?"

Sherlock's glare confirms it.

"I'll call young Adair and see what he's up to. In the meantime, get yourself some clothes." Mycroft hands Sherlock a credit card, notes that Sherlock has barely been getting by, and makes a snap decision. "And tell John that you're alive."

Sherlock hesitates. Mycroft remembers the well of insecurity that his brother holds.

"He's missed you." If John knew Sherlock wasn't dead everyone else would know because John could never fake that sort of grief, but that somehow doesn't make it right for Sherlock to leave John in such misery, or to spend three years on the run. Had Mycroft seen this coming when he was feeding Moriarty Sherlock's life story, he would have snapped the bastard's neck then and there, and damn the British Government.

**Hours**

John takes a cab home and sees a homeless man in a large coat sitting by his door. It brings a painful remembrance of the time when that meant Sherlock was about to get some information.

He tosses a bit of change into the man's hat anyway, and is mildly alarmed when the man gets up. John hasn't seen any adventure since Sherlock.

"I need tuh talk to yeh." The homeless man has a thick accent. He's short and dirty and John sighs.

"What?"

"Privately." The man croaks out. John thinks that he must be rather old, and for some reason opens the door to the flat. He's got a gun, and he was army trained, John is sure that he can handle one man.

"Here we are then." John closes the door to the flat, but doesn't lock it. He glances around and wishes for Sherlock. "Can I help you…"

Sherlock Holmes is standing there. The coat has been tossed aside, the dirtiness was clearly just an illusion created by two very thick sideburns, and holy god, this is Sherlock. He holds out a carton of milk.

"I brought milk." John faints.

**Minutes**

He wakes up to see Sherlock's face hovering over him.

"I'm about to wake up aren't I." John mutters. Sherlock shakes his head.

"No." John sighs and closes his eyes, because this is just a dream…except that wait a bloody minute, Sherlock brought home milk. Not in John's wildest dreams is Sherlock ever that considerate, or that ridiculous, and Sherlock looks horribly thin and rather sick and there's a scar on his neck that wasn't there.

John scrambles up and punches Sherlock. Hard.

Sherlock stumbles back with an arm over his face, looking hurt.

"I may have deserved that." John launches himself at Sherlock and tackles him onto the couch.

"Three years! Three bloody years of thinking you committed bloody suicide you bastard!" John grabs Sherlock and kisses him before he can think about it properly and ruin it. Sherlock kisses back, one hand crawling up to clutch John's sweater.

"I'm sorry." Sherlock says as soon as they break apart. John wraps his arms around Sherlock and tells him to shut up and save the explanations. Sherlock clearly isn't healthy, but he's physical and he's there and he's _not dead_.

"I watched you fall." John says, finally. "Why?"

"It's complicated." Sherlock says, his eyes flicking away. John runs a hand over Sherlock's arm and notices the injection marks. Concern suffuses the anger he's still feeling. "Assassins. Threats. Moriarty's web had to be taken care of."

"And we couldn't have done that together?" John asks, and it's half a plea.

"No." Sherlock whispers. He doesn't know why he sounds like this, it's emotional and it's not as though the past three years of being a fugitive and killing people and taking on gang after criminal after overlord have been so horrible.

"Oh." John wipes a tear away from Sherlock's eye - when did that get there? "Shh. It's okay."

"Of course it's okay." Sherlock chokes out. Why can't he speak properly? "I know it's o-okay."

John wraps his arms around Sherlock and they fall asleep on the couch. Having the real Sherlock is far better than the bathrobes, and Sherlock hadn't even know how much he missed John's sweaters.

**Minutes**

"Did you eat at all?"

"Yes! I ate…things." Sherlock says defensively. John rolls his eyes and plunks down a plate of food. Sherlock eyes it suspiciously. "I'm not hungry."

"Listen to me you bloody tosser, I'm not going to let you starve to death after three years of thinking you hopped off a building." John waits until Sherlock starts eating. "So, you faked it with Molly."

"Mmmhmm." Sherlock is still gripping John's sweater in one hand. It just won't obey his brain's commands to let go. "Went about destroying the organizations, couldn't come back because Sebastian Moran would kill you." Sherlock freezes. He didn't mean to say that.

"Because _what?_" John sounds pissed. Sherlock sinks down into his seat and mumbles something about conditions and a final problem and Moriarty, and John wants to kill every single person who called Sherlock selfish when he jumped.

"Sorry." Sherlock mutters. John sighs and kisses him again.

"I love you." John doesn't say the phrase often, but he needs to get it out _now_ in case something horrible happens. Sherlock looks up in a shocked way.

"I…" John feels his cheeks burn. "I didn't think…I mean, I love you too." That's the only time John has ever seen Sherlock tongue tied. John likes it. He wraps Sherlock in his arms and sighs and it's like the past three years are a distant memory.

"John I Oh my _God!_" Mrs. Hudson it seems, thinks differently. She drops her tea tray, and Sherlock frowns.

"Thank goodness you're here Mrs. Hudson, John's tea is abominable." Sherlock says. John groans and laughs at the same time. Mrs. Hudson marches over and smacks Sherlock across the face. Then she hugs him.

**Hours**

There's a new case on, and this is one of those cases of the century that they really could use some help on. Lestrade looks over his papers for the millionth time - Ronald Adair has been murdered, and no one knows how, including the poor DI who has to investigate. Lestrade, in this case.

A piercing scream rings out. Lestrade groans and gets up. With the day he's having, Sally better just be screaming because someone spilled coffee on her skirt.

"Sebastian Moran, right hand man of Jim Moriarty, with an air gun, because of gambling debts." Sherlock strides into his office, John in tow, and hurls a file on Lestrade's desk. "The evidence is there."

Lestrade stares. It is a testament to his extremely good constitution that he doesn't faint.

"Well! Arrest him!" Sherlock demands. "Before he gets away!"

"Yeah, he's back." John says. John looks better than he has in years. "Just listen to him, I'd say. Sorry for the lack of tact."

"Right." Lestrade says. He keeps staring. "I'll do that. Sherlock, good to see you."

"I doubt Sergeant Donovan feels the same way. And tell your wife she needs to stop wasting money on those ridiculous catalogues, her garlic stew will be terrible as long as she keeps buying it from the vendor on Carson road." Sherlock turns and sweeps out. John smiles and shrugs and follows. Lestrade hurries out into the office a minute later to see if that did actually happen, to find that Sally is white as a sheet and every single person there is looking shell shocked.

Lestrade grins. He can't help it. "Everyone up, I want a warrant for Sebastian Moran!"

People slowly move back into doing their jobs. Lestrade resolves to wander over to 221b later today and find out what the bloody hell just happened.

**Hours**

John traces the scars and thinks to himself that he's never letting Sherlock out of his sight ever again. Sherlock curls up on the bed next to him and clings to John, and for once in his life doesn't bother analyzing his emotions.

**A/N: Review please? The bold is basically how much time has passed, since I thought that many line breaks would overdo it. I don't know why I associate them reuniting with milk. **


End file.
